Town manager Paul Lambert felt Saturday’s first half display as the Blues were beaten 3-2 at home by Swindon was his side’s worst 45 minutes of the season.
Lambert watched the match from a box as he was continuing to feel the effects of Covid-19 but hopes to return to the dugout at Burton this weekend.
"Saturday, I was watching it, it wasn’t good enough,” he admitted. "We never fought, we never ran, we never did the hard yards, never did the other side of the game.
"It doesn’t matter what type of footballer you are, you have to put the work in and I don’t think we ran hard enough on Saturday. We just relied on us maybe creating something or us trying to do something ability-wise.
"But ability-wise doesn’t always win you games, you’ve got to put the hard work in. Like any job, you’ve got to put the hard work in.”
Asked if that was a concern, he said: "I think that’s the worst we’ve played, that 45 minutes [in the first half], I think that was the worst we’ve played all season. The lads know.
"I’ve never labelled them that since I’ve been here, they’ve always given us everything they’ve had but I just thought Saturday’s first half wasn’t good enough.”
Town have had a lengthy injury list which is finally beginning to shorten. After it was suggested his message to fans is ‘judge me when all of these players come back’, he responded: "No, it’s up to other people to judge. I just try and pick the team and try and get the best out of the guys and try and get them to win games. That’s what’s in my mind, what my focus is.
"The guys hopefully give you everything they can and apart from the first half on Saturday, they were fine.”
Lambert was asked about Emyr Huws, who has started the last two league games, which were separated by 25 days, and said: "Like everybody else was off the boil on Saturday. He’s got to hit the heights where he’s got to try and get into that mode where he’s got to go out week in, week out and I think that’s important for Emyr. I think that’s really important for his career.”